Saturday, July 28, 2007

One Funky Bunch

Being home sucks. We returned home from our trip to the beach an hour and a half ago and the Post-Vacation Funk has set in in a big way. It is now 9:30 p.m. and at 9:30 p.m on the beach for the past seven days I’ve been sitting down to dinner with friends. That’s right, dinner at 9:30, with drinks, yelling at kids to control themselves so we could eat, and some delicious food. After that? We burned stuff on the beach. After that? It probably won’t be blogged about. The point is, it’s 9:30 in Memphis and I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m having a beer. I guess I could go out on my deck and drink it, but there’s no sound of the surf, just a dog a couple houses down and the train. It’s getting to be FedEx plane landing time, so I guess I could pretend that’s the sound of the surf. There are no friends here, though, no sand, no cool Gulf breeze. And I’m wearing way too many clothes. The Funk didn’t begin for us as we pulled into the driveway, though, as we walked into our stale-smelling, one-week-vacant house. No, it started as we pulled away from Beach Walk West and drove down that long highway to reality. That’s when I looked over and saw the tears running from behind Kristy’s ever-present sunglasses. You see, it’s more than just Post-Vacation Funk for Team Urf!, it’s Post-Beach Funk, and that’s a whole different level of depression. It’s the very feeling in our bones that led us to move to Florida only six weeks after a vacation there just after we were married. That’s all I’m going to say about that, it’s the very. same. feeling.

I realize this isn’t the post you’ve all been looking for. I’ve been away for a week and the descending stair-steps of my stat counter tells me you’ve stopped expecting new posts. Perhaps you were expecting daily posting on the activity of a houseful of bloggers and their kids on the beach. Well, Alabama has the beach, the sun, the surf, copious wood to burn, alcohol, kids, but apparently no internet. And you know what? I didn’t miss it one bit. I don’t think any of us did. We even turned the clock on the microwave off because who cares what time it was? We were as far from reality as we could get.

There’s plenty more to be said here about the week, it was a blast. But right now there’s a pall on our homecoming because, well, we’re home, in the real world, and I’m not at all sandy, way too sober and overdressed. Now, if you need me, I’ll be in the backyard hunting for crabs alone with just my key chain (inside joke!).

I was glad to see the same stale post every day for a week--if I'd caught you blogging on vacation, a little piece of me would have died (the piece that was there on the beach with you, instead of sweating in the copy mines here in Bklyn). Hey, you know how it works: the sadder you are when you get home, the better trip you had. Welcome home from what sounds like a real best-of.